European railway operators revised their timetables on 15 December 2019 for the coming year. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights some of the main changes to international services:

Night services

The nadir for overnight train services in Europe came three years ago when SNCF, the French national operator, reduced its overnight services to a bare minimum and Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail operator, withdrew all of its sleeper services, citing decreasing passenger numbers and increasing losses. Such decisions now seem to have been misguided. Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) took over several of DB’s services and has made a success of it under the Nightjet brand. OeBB announced in October 2019 that bookings on both its regular seated and sleeper night trains were up 11 per cent year-on-year, and it plans to introduce a fleet of new trains in 2022 with en-suite sleeping compartments, and sleeping pods replacing the traditional couchettes.

Other rail operators, noting the growth in international rail travel, and the increasing awareness of the need for more sustainable travel modes, are looking at investing in night train services. Swiss Federal Railways has indicated that it is seeking to expand capacity on the night services between Switzerland and Germany and from Zurich to Prague. In Sweden, the government has invested in a feasibility study for the introduction of international night trains between Stockholm and several European cities, whilst in Scotland, the government is looking into starting an overnight train service from Glasgow and Edinburgh through Inverness and along the Far North line to Thurso, where it would connect with the ferry to Orkney.

In the immediate future, the new timetable sees the reintroduction of a night train service between Vienna and Brussels. On Wednesdays and Sundays from 19 January 2020, the existing Vienna/Innsbruck – Cologne – Dusseldorf will instead operate its final section between Cologne and Brussels. Departure from Vienna will be at 20:38, with arrival in Brussels Midi station at 10:55 the following morning. In the reverse direction, trains will depart Brussels at 18:04 on Mondays and Thursdays, with arrival in Vienna at 08:27 on Tuesdays and Fridays. It will be possible to travel between London and Vienna with only one change of train: connecting Eurostar services – with a cushion of about two hours in Brussels in each direction – will arrive at London St Pancras at 14:05 and depart from London for Brussels at 12:58.

Further expansion of this service will come in December 2020, when it is planned to increase the frequency of the Vienna – Brussels night train to daily operation, with a portion of this train going forward to Amsterdam, thus reintroducing night trains to the Netherlands after a gap of several years.

Western Europe

OeBB continues to expand coverage of its Railjet services. A new service will connect Vienna and Bolzano in the Italian province of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. It has been many years since the two cities were connected by direct trains, and then only by a seasonal service.

From June 2020, there will be an additional Railjet service from Berlin via Prague to Vienna and Graz. This will complement the existing Berlin – Nuremberg – Vienna ICE service.

TGV Lyria trains operating between Paris and Switzerland will see a boost in capacity by more than 25% by using exclusively double-deck trains. Furthermore, the introduction of ICE-4 trainsets to replace the existing ICE-1 sets will represent a 20% increase in capacity on services between Switzerland, Frankfurt and Berlin. SBB Swiss Federal Railways has announced that Switzerland has seen a 10% increase in international passenger traffic year-on-year for the first nine months of 2019.

The short but strategically important cross-border line between Geneva and Annemasse (in France) has opened. Services over the line are branded Léman Express and many trains will run onwards in France to Evian-les-Bains and Annecy.

In rather sad news for aficionados of train-ferry operations, one of the few remaining such services in Europe has ceased. In a highly-efficient arrangement, Hamburg to Copenhagen trains used to board the vehicle ferry between Puttgarden in Germany and Rødby in Denmark, the trains fitting very snugly onto the ferry’s vehicle deck alongside coaches and cars. They will now take the longer route northwards through Jutland, then turning eastwards across the Great Belt Fixed Link. However, the journey time will be slightly reduced.

Central and eastern Europe

• The Vienna – Budapest – Cluj Napoca (EC Transilvania) train will also convey through coaches to another Romanian city, Satu Mare. These coaches will be detached from the Transilvania at Püspökladány in Hungary.

• EC Báthory which previously connected Budapest and Warsaw is extended to Terespol on the border between Poland and Belarus. At Bohumin in the Czech Republic, a sleeping car to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, will be attached.

• The niche private operator Leo Express, which operates trains between Prague, Ostrava, Kosice and Krakow will introduce a train from Prague to the Polish city of Wroclaw on three days a week. Leo Express trains consist of three classes: economy, business and the excellent 6-seat premium zone. It’s a shame that its trains between the major tourist centres of Prague and Krakow operate only twice weekly and at rather unsocial hours: arrival at Krakow is at 22:50 and the return departure to Prague at – unfortunately – 04:29.

MAV Hungarian railways have recently reintroduced restaurant cars on its Eurocity services between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Romania; a welcome enhancement, but think comfort food rather than haute cuisine.

And finally …..

Subject to government approval, Eurostar will operate through services from Amsterdam to London from 31 March 2020. The London to Amsterdam service started in spring 2018, but the return services – bafflingly – ended at Brussels with passengers having to go through the normal check-in and security procedures before catching the next Eurostar to London. Departures from Amsterdam Centraal are provisionally planned for 07:47, 13:46 and 18:47 arriving at London St Pancras at 10:57, 16:57 and 21:57 – a journey time of just over 4 hours. It must be emphasised that the British and Dutch governments have to sign the relevant treaty before the service can go ahead.

European railway operators revised their timetables on 15 December 2019 for the coming year. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights some of the main changes to international services:

Night services

The nadir for overnight train services in Europe came three years ago when SNCF, the French national operator, reduced its overnight services to a bare minimum and Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail operator, withdrew all of its sleeper services, citing decreasing passenger numbers and increasing losses. Such decisions now seem to have been misguided. Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) took over several of DB’s services and has made a success of it under the Nightjet brand. OeBB announced in October 2019 that bookings on both its regular seated and sleeper night trains were up 11 per cent year-on-year, and it plans to introduce a fleet of new trains in 2022 with en-suite sleeping compartments, and sleeping pods replacing the traditional couchettes.

Other rail operators, noting the growth in international rail travel, and the increasing awareness of the need for more sustainable travel modes, are looking at investing in night train services. Swiss Federal Railways has indicated that it is seeking to expand capacity on the night services between Switzerland and Germany and from Zurich to Prague. In Sweden, the government has invested in a feasibility study for the introduction of international night trains between Stockholm and several European cities, whilst in Scotland, the government is looking into starting an overnight train service from Glasgow and Edinburgh through Inverness and along the Far North line to Thurso, where it would connect with the ferry to Orkney.

In the immediate future, the new timetable sees the reintroduction of a night train service between Vienna and Brussels. On Wednesdays and Sundays from 19 January 2020, the existing Vienna/Innsbruck – Cologne – Dusseldorf will instead operate its final section between Cologne and Brussels. Departure from Vienna will be at 20:38, with arrival in Brussels Midi station at 10:55 the following morning. In the reverse direction, trains will depart Brussels at 18:04 on Mondays and Thursdays, with arrival in Vienna at 08:27 on Tuesdays and Fridays. It will be possible to travel between London and Vienna with only one change of train: connecting Eurostar services – with a cushion of about two hours in Brussels in each direction – will arrive at London St Pancras at 14:05 and depart from London for Brussels at 12:58.

Further expansion of this service will come in December 2020, when it is planned to increase the frequency of the Vienna – Brussels night train to daily operation, with a portion of this train going forward to Amsterdam, thus reintroducing night trains to the Netherlands after a gap of several years.

Western Europe

OeBB continues to expand coverage of its Railjet services. A new service will connect Vienna and Bolzano in the Italian province of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. It has been many years since the two cities were connected by direct trains, and then only by a seasonal service.

From June 2020, there will be an additional Railjet service from Berlin via Prague to Vienna and Graz. This will complement the existing Berlin – Nuremberg – Vienna ICE service.

TGV Lyria trains operating between Paris and Switzerland will see a boost in capacity by more than 25% by using exclusively double-deck trains. Furthermore, the introduction of ICE-4 trainsets to replace the existing ICE-1 sets will represent a 20% increase in capacity on services between Switzerland, Frankfurt and Berlin. SBB Swiss Federal Railways has announced that Switzerland has seen a 10% increase in international passenger traffic year-on-year for the first nine months of 2019.

The short but strategically important cross-border line between Geneva and Annemasse (in France) has opened. Services over the line are branded Léman Express and many trains will run onwards in France to Evian-les-Bains and Annecy.

In rather sad news for aficionados of train-ferry operations, one of the few remaining such services in Europe has ceased. In a highly-efficient arrangement, Hamburg to Copenhagen trains used to board the vehicle ferry between Puttgarden in Germany and Rødby in Denmark, the trains fitting very snugly onto the ferry’s vehicle deck alongside coaches and cars. They will now take the longer route northwards through Jutland, then turning eastwards across the Great Belt Fixed Link. However, the journey time will be slightly reduced.

Central and eastern Europe

• The Vienna – Budapest – Cluj Napoca (EC Transilvania) train will also convey through coaches to another Romanian city, Satu Mare. These coaches will be detached from the Transilvania at Püspökladány in Hungary.

• EC Báthory which previously connected Budapest and Warsaw is extended to Terespol on the border between Poland and Belarus. At Bohumin in the Czech Republic, a sleeping car to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, will be attached.

• The niche private operator Leo Express, which operates trains between Prague, Ostrava, Kosice and Krakow will introduce a train from Prague to the Polish city of Wroclaw on three days a week. Leo Express trains consist of three classes: economy, business and the excellent 6-seat premium zone. It’s a shame that its trains between the major tourist centres of Prague and Krakow operate only twice weekly and at rather unsocial hours: arrival at Krakow is at 22:50 and the return departure to Prague at – unfortunately – 04:29.

MAV Hungarian railways have recently reintroduced restaurant cars on its Eurocity services between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Romania; a welcome enhancement, but think comfort food rather than haute cuisine.

And finally …..

Subject to government approval, Eurostar will operate through services from Amsterdam to London from 31 March 2020. The London to Amsterdam service started in spring 2018, but the return services – bafflingly – ended at Brussels with passengers having to go through the normal check-in and security procedures before catching the next Eurostar to London. Departures from Amsterdam Centraal are provisionally planned for 07:47, 13:46 and 18:47 arriving at London St Pancras at 10:57, 16:57 and 21:57 – a journey time of just over 4 hours. It must be emphasised that the British and Dutch governments have to sign the relevant treaty before the service can go ahead.

European railways revise their timetables for the coming year on 10th December 2017. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights some of the main changes to international services.

Night services
Night services in Europe have suffered a cull over the last few years, with several rail operators considering them to be no longer financially viable, especially where rolling stock was reaching the end of its useful life and major investment would be required to keep services running.

This trend was bucked somewhat last year when OeBB, the national Austrian operator, set up its new brand, Nightjet, to run its own domestic and international services with refurbished coaches, and at the same time take over several CityNightLine services, when its owner, Deutsche Bahn, decided to exit the night train market. Initial signs from OeBB regarding financial results have been encouraging.

Nevertheless, the timetable change sees further night train losses:
• The Metropol service between Budapest and Berlin is withdrawn. A night service will still operate between Budapest and Prague, but with an arrival time in Prague at about 6am, and a departure southbound from Prague at midnight, many passengers may find the times inconvenient. Blue Guides recommends taking one of the several day trains instead, and enjoying a meal in one of the bustling and reasonably-priced Czech restaurant cars.

• The night train from Paris to Nice is finally withdrawn. The forlorn successor to the famous Train Bleu – which started running in 1886 – has in recent years been reduced to offering couchettes and seats only. After 130 years, the history of night trains between Paris and the Riviera draws to a close.

There is other mixed news for night services:
• The Budapest – Lviv – Kiev sleeper will be extended to and from Vienna; but at the same time the through Prague – Kiev cars will cease to operate: connections will be available at Kosice instead.

• The Budapest, Vienna and Prague – Krakow service will be combined with the service from those three capitals to Warsaw, operating via Krakow to Warsaw and no longer serving Katowice.

• The Zurich – Berlin – HamburgNightjet service will now separate into two portions (one to Berlin and one to Hamburg) en route, meaning an earlier arrival in, and later departure from, Hamburg.

Trans-Alpine services
There is some good news for international services across the Alps. In the west, there is a new Eurocity service from Frankfurt to Milan, with a departure close to 08:00 from Frankfurt and an arrival at Milano Centrale just after 15:30. In Germany, this train will also have a new designation: Eurocity Express (ECE). Northbound, the existing late-morning departure from Milan to Basel will be extended to Frankfurt, arriving at around 19:00.

Not strictly trans-Alpine – there is not such good news further south. Thello trains operating from Milan to Marseille will not operate between Nice and Marseille (in both directions) on most days. Additionally, the Geneva – Marseille – Nice TGV will terminate and start from Marseille.

In the east, there is a welcome additional service each way between Vienna and Venice. Currently, one trainset operates a round-trip each way, leaving Vienna at 06:35 and arriving back at 23:35. These timings make it impossible for same-day connections further afield, and are pretty horrible even if you are starting or finishing your journey in the Vienna area itself. There will now be an additional service departing Wien Hauptbahnhof at 12:25, and arriving at Venezia Santa Lucia at 20:05. In the reverse direction the additional train will leave Venice at 09:55 and arrive in Vienna at 17:35. These new services will allow same-day connections to and from, for example, Budapest and Prague. However, since the advertised departure from Budapest (09:40) to connect with the 12:25 departure from Vienna allows only a 4-minute transfer time at Wien Hauptbahnhof, Blue Guides recommends taking the train an hour earlier from Budapest to reduce the risk of a missed connection. Both the daily services between Vienna and Venice will be operated by Railjet trainsets.

Germany and Central Europe
• A major new high-speed line in Germany will mean a significant improvement in train times for Munich to Berlin journeys. The fastest trains on this route will now take a smidgen under 4 hours – more than 2 hours shorter than at present.

• Track improvements between Würzburg and Aschaffenburg will mean reductions in Vienna-Frankfurt ICE journey times of around 25 minutes.

• Services between Prague, Regensburg and Munich will be nearly doubled to provide a two-hourly-interval daytime service.

• The Prague – Bohumin service, which was extended in the summer to Krakow as EC Cracovia, proved popular and will now operate between Prague and Krakow throughout the year.

• Daytime trains between Budapest and Prague will be accelerated by 15 minutes: not because of any track improvements, but because they will operate on the more direct line to Nyugati station in Budapest (as they used to do until about twelve years ago) rather than to Keleti station. Whilst this routing avoids the slow around-the-houses crawl in Budapest, it does mean the end of same-station connections further afield to eastern and southern Hungary, Romania and Serbia.

• Westbahn, the private Austrian operator, will introduce new services between Wien Hauptbahnhof and Salzburg, providing more competition with OeBB, the traditional national operator. Westbahn currently only operates, appropriately, from the Westbahnhof.

…. and finally
Thello (operating trains on the routes Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam or Cologne) and TGV Lyria (Paris – Switzerland) will offer three service classes rather than the current two. The “middle” class will include a first-class seat but no complimentary food and drink. This will inevitably mean that Interrail and Eurail passholders paying the 1st class pass supplement will no longer receive the complimentary catering.

There is still no confirmed news on the commencement of the London – Brussels – Amsterdam Eurostar service, although various sources indicate a probable spring 2018 start date with two round-trip services daily. Blue Guides will keep you posted.

If you are intending to travel by rail in Europe, Mark Dudgeon, Blue Guides’ resident rail expert, offers advice about where to start and suggests some of the most useful internet resources to help in your planning:

GENERAL PLANNING

Seat 61 is an ex-railway manager’s personal but comprehensive guide to travelling by train in Europe and the rest of the world. Once considered to be rather too anglo-centric (“How to get from London to….”), it has since expanded to include more detailed information about travelling by train within and between almost any country which has a rail network. Regularly updated, this site is a good starting point for organising a journey by rail in Europe.

Deutsche Bahn‘s website is, they claim, “Europe’s biggest online travel booking tool”. Certainly, it is generally considered to be the best timetable planner for train journeys throughout Europe. When planning journeys, exercise care, however – except for within Germany, this site does not show temporary or last minute timetable changes: national rail websites are better for this. Weekend journeys in Britain, for example, are frequently disrupted by engineering work on the line.

If you enjoy poring over maps when planning journeys, the Railways through Europe site has comprehensive rail maps for each country, although you may find the design of the maps more of interest to the rail fan rather than the independent traveller.

EUROSTAR

For many British citizens, at least, Eurostar has offered them their first experience of international train travel. Despite being 20 years old now, and looking rather jaded in parts – standard class seating is cramped and the bistro cars are particularly dismal – the Eurostar experience still can captivate the imagination in a way that short-haul flights cannot. London’s St Pancras station is a particularly impressive place to start a journey: until you get past check-in, that is – the Eurostar waiting lounge can get overcrowded very quickly. The experience should soon regain its glamour factor: a new service from London to Marseille was introduced in May 2015, and brand-new Siemens-built Eurostar e320 trainsets will start operating on the London-Paris route at the end of 2015. Eurostar also plans to operate trains between London and Amsterdam from December 2016. Unfortunately, Deutsche Bahn, which had announced plans to introduce through trains between London, Cologne, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, has now put those plans on indefinite hold.

EUROPE-WIDE RAIL PASSES

One of the big decisions, when planning to do some serious train travel in Europe, is whether or not to buy a rail pass. The two principal types for extensive travel, which have a variety of geographic options (for one or more countries) and several validity periods, are Eurail and Inter-Rail. The basic rule is that Inter-Rail passes are available for anyone resident (for at least six months) in Europe, and Eurail passes are available for everyone else. The best sites for checking the details, including advice on planning trips, and buying passes, are the official sites operated by the Eurail.com company: Eurail and Inter-Rail.

It is important to note that – with some exceptions – Eurail and national passes can generally only be purchased before you arrive in Europe (or the specific country). Inter-Rail passes can be purchased in your country of residence, but they do not allow free travel in that country.

NATIONAL RAIL PASSES

Several countries also issue their own national passes independent of the Eurail/Inter-Rail scheme, and sometimes these offer a better deal. Most passes are available to anyone not resident in the country of travel.

The ever-popular Swiss Pass and Swiss Flexi-Pass cover most types of public transport in Switzerland without extra payment, or at a discount. There is also the useful Swiss Card, offering a visitor a round-trip transfer from the Swiss border (including airports) to any Swiss destination and back, plus unlimited tickets (including boats and some cable-cars) at 50% discount for one month.

The German Rail Pass is only available for non-European residents. Passes are available for a number of days-of-use (from 3 up to 10) within a period of one month – the days do not have to be consecutive.

Renfe’s Spain Pass operates in a different way: you can select passes offering from 4 to 12 long-distance journeys within one month. Connecting local train services at each end of your journey are included free of charge.

The range of BritRail passes is available in several variations, from the London-Plus Pass to the Britrail Pass itself – covering England, Scotland and Wales – with another version including all Ireland. BritRail also offers various discounts on the standard pass prices: for example for low-season travel (November to February), and – unusually – for a British resident travelling together with a visitor.

LOCAL RAIL PASSES

If you are visiting one country, and want to explore a smaller area by train, there is also a variety of local and regional train pass offers available to all travellers. Some countries are better than others for this: Germany, for example, has the excellent one-day Länder-Tickets valid on regional and local trains in each German state, for up to five people travelling together. These have the added advantage of being available on local transport in towns and cities – for example, the Bayern-Ticket is valid on Munich buses, trams and U-bahn (subway) as well as local trains.

Britain has a wide range of regional passes valid for one or several days, although you will need to dig around a bit on the Rangers and Rovers page to see if one would suit you.

BUYING TICKETS

While European train travel has become generally faster and more comfortable over the past couple of decades, it has also become more fragmented – rather than government-owned megaliths operating all the rail services within each country’s borders, privatisation has begun to make its mark in some countries (notably Britain), and several private operators run cross-border services (Eurostar from London to Paris and Brussels, and Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam and Cologne being prime examples).

Twenty years or so ago, you could roll up at the International Travel Centre on platform 1 at London’s Victoria station, and ask for a one-way ticket from London to Budapest. The clerk would dutifully consult a very large tome – the international ticketing manual – you would agree with him the route you intended to travel, and he would calculate a price – all worked out by the distance travelled in each country you passed through. The ticket would be issued, and you were all set – you could stop off anywhere en route, without formality, within the two-month validity of the ticket.

So nowadays, if you decide a rail pass is not for you, or you simply just want to purchase a one-way point-to-point ticket, where do you start?

If your journey is straightforward and involves only one operator, in most cases you can simply visit the operator’s website and book online, print your ticket off (or have it mailed to you).

However, things can get more complicated very quickly. It can be a challenge finding a travel agent able and willing to issue an international train ticket for a complicated routing. (It involves a lot of manual work). If you want to book online, some websites make a brave attempt at pan-European ticketing. Loco2, for example, is relatively new and gets some good reviews. For our London – Budapest journey, it will quote you a price – or rather two or more prices for separate tickets on specific trains – but the options it will offer you are limited. If you want to stopover in Cologne, say, on the way, you’re going to have to split the journey into two, and even then you will only be offered a small number of options.

Alternatively, in Britain, for example, Deutsche Bahn’s UK booking centre can be very helpful in pricing and ticketing more complicated journeys by phone.

Here are our tips for purchasing rail tickets:

1. Flexibility or specific trains? On most websites, you will be offered tickets for flexible travel (check the operator’s conditions) or cheaper tickets for travel on specific trains, which are often not refundable and not changeable (so if you don’t travel or you miss your train, you’ve lost your money). The choice is yours; you need to assess how important flexibility is to you. If your journey requires more than one non-flexible ticket, do ensure that you leave plenty of connecting time between trains, since it is not guaranteed that one operator will be understanding, and let you travel on a later train if you miss a connection because of another operator’s delay.

2. Journeys within one country: it is usually best to use the national operator’s website to book tickets, for example Deutsche Bahn for Germany or Trenitalia for Italy. You are likely to be offered the best range of tickets, and the booking experience should generally be smooth. However, do check if a smaller private operator runs trains on your planned route. For example, you might consider Westbahn if travelling between Vienna and Salzburg (instead of the Austrian national operator, OeBB); or Italo between Rome and Milan (instead of Trenitalia).

3. International journeys: many countries have bilateral or multilateral agreements with nearby countries for ticketing for specific rail journeys. In this case, check for the ticket you require on the website of the operator in either the departing or arriving country. (So, for example SNCF and DB for a Paris to Frankfurt ticket.) In some cases, you may find that the ticket is cheaper on one site rather than the other.

Here is our list of the principal national rail sites, useful both for up-to-date timetable information and booking tickets:

Germany: Deutsche Bahn (DB) for booking rail tickets within Germany, and for international journeys starting or ending in Germany. There is the odd additional quirk: for example, you can book a London to Salzburg ticket, since DB considers Salzburg to be within Germany for ticketing purposes; or the night train from Amsterdam to Prague (which is operated by City Night Line, a Deutsche Bahn subsidiary). Their London-Spezial tickets – for journeys between London and Germany – can be particularly good value.

France: SNCF in its various guises can be a bit clunky. Try Capitaine Train instead – also useful for some international tickets.

Italy:  Trenitalia is quite user-friendly; usefully, train pass holders can also book and change reservations-only on high-speed trains.

Other national operators’ websites include Spain: Renfe;Austria: OeBB; Switzerland: SBB; and the Netherlands: NS.

In Great Britain: National Rail represents the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC). To find out the specific train operating company (TOC) for your journey, consult either the online timetable or the maps section. Refer to the individual operator’s website to buy tickets.

Other major operators on specific routes include:
City Night Line: the largest operator of night trains in Europe, mainly for journeys originating, ending or passing through Germany.
Eurostar – London to Paris and Brussels; also to French ski-resorts (in season) and Marseille
Thalys – Paris to Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam
Thello – Night trains between France and Italy, and daytime trains between Marseille, Nice and Milan
TGV Lyria – Trains between Paris and Switzerland

New European rail timetable

Latest update: August 2015

December each year heralds the introduction of a new rail timetable across Europe, with new services and the inevitable demise of others. With rail travel becoming increasingly popular in Europe, Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail expert, highlights some of the key changes to international services, effective from 14 December 2014.

Night services

The attitude of European train operating companies to night train services over recent years has been ambivalent, to say the least. By their very nature, night trains require specialised coaches which require higher levels of cleaning and maintenance than “normal” day trains, and then they stand around unused for most of the day. Additionally, track access at night can be fraught with difficulties since freight trains generally have precedence over passenger trains, and night-time engineering work can cause frequent diversions and delays. Combine this with international border crossings and the dividing and joining of train portions at various stations, and it can be seen why night trains are viewed as an inefficient and costly relic of bygone days. Many, however, would say this is short-sighted and the market – although niche – for night trains is there: it just needs to be addressed correctly. If there is one area begging for concerted EU intervention, this is it.

Little surprise, therefore, that CityNightLine (CNL), the biggest operator of night passenger trains in western Europe, has wielded the axe to several services, citing declining passenger numbers, high fixed costs and competition from low-cost airlines. Deutsche Bahn, which owns CNL, says the trains are reaching the end of their useful life, and the services do not make enough money to warrant investment in new rolling-stock. But by cutting services, and reducing facilities – all CNL restaurant cars, a highlight of any overnight journey, were recently withdrawn – the services become less attractive and declining patronage inevitable.

Since early November 2014, Copenhagen has seen the end of all of its night trains (to Amsterdam, Prague and Basel), and from December 2014, the key international routes of Paris – Munich, Paris – Hamburg and Paris – Berlin will all lose their night services. Amsterdam will lose its overnight train to Warsaw and Prague: this train will now start from the nondescript German city of Oberhausen, north of Dusseldorf, instead.

Elsewhere, there is mixed news for night trains:

• A new service will be introduced between Budapest and Sofia: the night train Serdica will operate via Timisoara and south-western Romania, rather than taking the more direct route through Belgrade and Serbia.

• The long-distance Tisza, between Budapest, Ukraine and Moscow is withdrawn. In its place, there will be a new express, Latorca, from Budapest to Lviv and Kiev. The Budapest to Moscow sleeping car, meanwhile, will be reduced from operating daily to only once a week, and will be attached to the new Csárdás Eurocity train (see below), travelling via Bratislava, before heading to Brest, Minsk and Moscow. However, this new routing will lead to a significant time saving of some seven-and-a-half hours for the Budapest to Moscow journey.

• The excellent composite night service between Munich/Vienna and Milan/Rome – which was threatened with withdrawal a few years ago – continues.

• The Budapest – Zurich and Budapest – Munich overnight services will be combined between Budapest and Salzburg – which seems a sensible move. This will have the feel of a “proper” night train on leaving Budapest, with five of its eight coaches being sleeping or couchette cars, but, sadly, there will be no restaurant car attached.

Eurostar

Eurostar has been running its monopoly between London and continental Europe for 20 years, but the introduction of new destinations has been sparse. May 2015 will see the introduction of a regular (but not daily – summer 2015 will see the train operating on five days a week) service from London to Lyon, Avignon and Marseille. In order that the Eurostar train can get there and back in a day, this will mean an early departure from, and a late return arrival at, London’s St Pancras station. Furthermore, because of security checks and UK border controls, the return journey will require all passengers to detrain at Lille, with baggage in tow, to complete these formalities – adding about an hour to the journey, and perhaps significantly diminishing the attractiveness of this service. It is the reluctance of the UK authorities to set up controls at more continental stations which is a major obstacle to the addition of new international destinations from London, and is one of the main reasons why Deutsche Bahn has put its proposed through ICE services between London and Germany on hold.

New French Riviera to Milanservice

Thello, which operates night services between Paris and Italy, will operate its first daytime service with the introduction of a Marseille – Nice – Genoa – Milan train, classified as a Eurocity service.  The London – Marseille Eurostar connects neatly into the Marseille – Milan service: but only on the outward journey. This new train operates only in the late afternoon in both directions, with resulting late arrivals at both Milan and Marseille. Update January 2015: It has been confirmed that two additional trains each way will be introduced between Nice and Milan from 12th April 2015: departures from Nice Ville are at 08:09 and 14:09; departures from Milano Centrale are at 07:05 and 11:10, which means that the timings of the three trains in each direction will be spread fairly evenly through the day. Journey time between Nice and Milan will be approximately four and three-quarter hours.

Central Europe

Much of the action – in terms of new and revised services – happens in central Europe.

Czech and Austrian railways introduce new Railjet services between Prague, Vienna and Graz with a two-hourly frequency. This will result in the Prague to Vienna journey time being reduced by about half-an-hour. It also means the withdrawal of the Hamburg to Vienna via Berlin daytime train, EC Vindabona – apparently after over 50 years of continuous service by a direct train on this route.

Whilst in much of western Europe the Eurocity (EC) “brand” – introduced in the 1980s – has been superseded by international high-speed services such as Thalys, French TGVs and German ICEs, in central Europe the name certainly lives on:

• EC Avala, which ran between Prague and Belgrade via Budapest, will revert to its previous routing of Vienna to Belgrade via Budapest. The “lost” Prague to Budapest sector will be filled by a new train, EC Csárdás.

• EC Vindabona will be replaced by an additional Budapest – Prague – Berlin – Hamburg train, EC Porta Bohemica. This will mean an uninterrupted two-hourly frequency of EC trains between Prague and Budapest in the daytime.

• EC Varsovia, the Budapest to Warsaw daytime service is withdrawn; instead EC Praha will operate between Prague and Warsaw.

• The daytime Eurocity service introduced a year ago between Vienna and Venice, which passes through some stupendous scenery in the eastern Alps, sees the very welcome addition of a restaurant car, while the EC Transalpin, also running through spectacular Alpine scenery between Graz and Zurich, rightly has its panorama car restored.

An additional daytime service between Budapest and Belgrade will be reinstated, although this will be a “normal” international train – rather than Eurocity standard – named Ivo Andric. Journey times between Budapest and Belgrade continue to be painfully slow – both night and day trains taking around 8 hours to complete a journey of well under 400 kilometres.

The Railjets between Budapest and Vienna have become a victim of their own success, somewhat, and are frequently crowded. On one recent holiday weekend, OeBB (Austrian Railways) staff refused to “accept” a Railjet train at the border because of serious overcrowding – about 200 standing passengers were offloaded from the 408-seat train. MÁV (Hungarian Railways) would prefer that these trains were operated on a reservation-only basis, but apparently OeBB has rejected this idea. The new timetable introduces two additional Eurocity trains each way, the EC Avala, already mentioned, and the new EC Hortobágy, which will run from the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen via Budapest to Vienna, and be operated, strangely, by a Polish Railways’ trainset. This will result in an hourly frequency during the early morning from Budapest to Vienna, and during the late afternoon in the reverse direction. Note that both of these additional trains will call at Kelenföld, and not Keleti, station in Budapest.

Vienna’s new Hauptbahnhof

The long, drawn-out opening of Vienna’s new “central” station continues. It had been expected that this would be fully up-and-running by this year’s December timetable change, but now it will be a further year before it is fully operational.

However – at last – most international services will now call at this new station. The two-hourly ICE services between Vienna and Germany will now start from Vienna Airport station, and via a newly-constructed link, will call at the Hauptbahnhof and Vienna Meidling, before heading off along the high-speed line towards Linz and on to Germany.

The Budapest – Vienna – Munich Railjets will also call at the Hauptbahnhof, but OeBB has decided, in its wisdom, that they will continue to serve (and reverse at) Vienna’s Westbahnhof for another year. This means that passengers travelling between Budapest and Munich will have to wait until December 2015 for the half-hour time saving that will be achieved by eliminating the Westbahnhof stop. Update August 2015: Provisional timetables for 2016 indicate that Railjets will leave Budapest Keleti 30 minutes later than currently scheduled, and the time saving between Budapest and Munich will be, on average, 35 minutes.

It is somewhat of a paradox, that a city rich with architectural masterpieces has never built for itself a railway station of equal grandeur. The two principal main stations for many years, the Westbahnhof and the now demolished Südbahnhof, were utilitarian rather than elegant. The new Hauptbahnhof, situated slightly to the south-east of the old Südbahnhof, does not buck the trend, frankly. The two lower floors contain the inevitable rows of shopping facilities – barely distinguishable from the revamped Westbahnhof, or a modern airport. The platform level is dominated by a chunky, angular, heavy roof canopy, which makes what could have been a welcoming, open space, dark and almost claustrophobic. Budding architects of new railway stations could do worse than visit Liège Guillemins station in Belgium, with its flowing lines and stupendous monumental arch, as designed by Santiago Caltrava, to see what can be achieved in modern railway design.

… and finally

International services to Greece were withdrawn by the Greek government following the 2008 financial crash. In May 2014, some services were restored with trains between Thessaloniki and Belgrade and Sofia – still some way removed from the core European rail network. However, from summer 2015, a through service will be introduced between Budapest and Thessaloniki – once a week, a couchette coach and a seated coach will be attached to the Ivo Andric train between Budapest and Belgrade, and thence onwards with the Hellas Express to Thessaloniki. For those aficionados of the glory days of real long-distance train travel in Europe, this will allow for journeys such as Zurich, Berlin or Munich to Greece, with only one change of train in Budapest. Update August 2015: Greek Railways has announced that until further notice, this train will be substituted by a bus in Greece (from the border station at Gevgelija in Macedonia).

Questions, comments to Mark, rail@blueguides.com

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There are many lovely train journeys in the world, but this must be one of the loveliest: the route taken through the Alpine foothills of Switzerland by the Goldenpass. This winter, you can hop aboard the “Cheese Train” to watch traditional alpine Swiss cheese being made. Details are below.

The full route begins in Montreux, from the railway station just above the lake, and continues to Zweisimmen in the Bernese Oberland.

Very soon after Montreux the train begins to climb vertiginously, leaving the tall hotels and sombre boarding houses far below. The lake is spread before you, first on one side and then on the other as the train winds round. Perched on a ledge high above the water, a power station with its tall chimney looms on a ledge like a 21st-century monastery with its bell-tower. The water is a deep navy blue: jagged mountains garlanded with clouds soar above it. It is easy to understand why, in the days before one could simply snap a picture of the scene on one’s smartphone, travellers were moved to capture the scene in verse. “The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,” scribbled a breathless Byron, “And I must pierce them, and survey whate’er may be permitted, as my steps I bend to their most great and growing region, where the earth to her embrace compels the powers of air!” Quite so.

After Chamby (a request stop), Montreux is far below and you begin to hear cowbells, see fields scattered with baled-up hay and neat wood piles outside snug chalets, their balconies ablaze with geraniums. At Les Avants the train halts to wait for the one coming in the opposite direction. The station building announces that we have climbed to 972.76m (slightly over 3000ft).

Soon after this the train enters a long tunnel. When it emerges at the other end, it reveals a completely different landscape. This is the famous Oberland, or Pays d’Enhaut, an amazingly lovely region of luminous green pastures, leaping crags, hurtling waterfalls and forests of pine and red fir. It is here, in the high, scattered chalets, that Etivaz is made, the mountain cheese that rivals Gruyère for authenticity and flavour. In the high pastures, cheese is made in the chalets until October. Farmers rise to milk their cows at five. Cheese-making (in a copper cauldron over a wood fire) begins around seven. The milk is slowly heated and stirred, and the curds collected into a cheesecloth and placed in a circular press to make the smooth golden truckles of Etivaz. In winter, cheesemakers demonstrate their skill at a place called Le Chalet. For details of how to participate, see the Cheese Train section of the Goldenpass website.

After Rougemont, with its fortified church and former priory, French-speaking Switzerland ends and the German part begins. The trains stops at Saanen, with its airfield for the jet-setters of Gstaad, then Gstaad itself, and then Zweisimmen. The total journey time is around two hours.

Practicalities

There are three types of train on this route. The Goldenpass Classic is a reproduction of a 1930s luxury Pullman. The Goldenpass Panoramic has huge picture windows which allow you to see as much as possible of the view. There are also VIP coaches which you can book in advance, which are right at the very front of the train. Timetables posted at the stations tell you what kind of train operates when. If neither Classic nor Panoramic is indicated, the train will be a small, humble little thing, with a guard’s van equipped with lantern, stop sign, broom and snow shovel. In some ways these are the most authentic-feeling of all, though they tend to run only early in the morning or at night.

Information about prices, special offers, discounts and timetables can be found on the website here.

And if you stop in Château d’Oex, be sure to visit the Musée du Pays d’Enhaut to see the extraordinary handiwork of J-J Hauswirth, a man of apparently little or no formal education who produced intricate and unbelievably delicate cut-outs or découpages, attaching his scissors to his hands with wires when he grew older and his fingers grew too thick.